Comment by JohnBooty
6 years ago
It reminds me of the (nearly cliche, but timeless) quote from MLK about riots:
"I think that we’ve got to see that a riot is the
language of the unheard"
I don't think anybody, even "cancellers," think it's a remotely ideal solution. But when groups go unheard, feel a system is unjust, and feel unable to change the system they understandably seek to go outside the system.
Please note that I have specifically used the term "understandably" above as opposed to, say, "justly." You may feel a particular instance is or isn't just, but even if one vehemently disagrees with the practice it is typically understandable.
Consider that "cancelling" is often invoked in response to acts (sexual assault, racism) that have been regarded as wrong and/or illegal for millennia. And yet, those acts persist. Clearly the current system doesn't do enough to prevent them. So folks feel the need to go outside the system. "Cancel culture" is best understood as a symptom and not the problem.
Sure, but it's also got a great deal to do with political identity and group signalling.
In the modern age (and forever, probably, but more quietly / less permanently), we are defined by what we're outraged by.
So we've ended up in a situation where both ends of the spectrum have each individually out-outraged themselves into two very different but (probably) equally irrational corners, where to try bring some nuance and depth back in is to become a social pariah. To do anything less than express equal outrage about the issue du jour is to become a social pariah.
Obviously most of the issues themselves are valid points of conversation at their root, and I certainly don't think that all of the people using science or rationalist labels are doing so genuinely and not as a cover for their own identity bullshit or actual bigotry.
But that's orthogonal to the observation that it seems true that we simply can't have a conversation anymore about certain trigger topics. Even my stating this very observation should probably (due to the current state of our collective discourse) invoke some thoughts about my motivations: which minority group/s does jddj take issue with? Is he transphobic? He mustn't realise how much of the repression of women has simply been normalised for him.
Whether it's a symptom or a standalone issue isn't really important. The point is that it's not useful as a tool for beneficial societal change, instead it's a tool for gesturing vaguely and it's a crutch that we lean on so as to not need to truly engage with or wade into the uncomfortably nuanced grey areas which naturally surround every issue.
But on the left we've absolutely embraced it, to a fault. Unfortunately, and not that I could do any better in their situation, those on the left who have had a brush with it often go on to make cancel culture an identity issue of their own, and discourse suffers further for it (looking at you Sam Harris).
Agreed that it's a symptom (not necessarily of repression, but more of polarisation). I don't agree that that characterisation is enough to get it a free pass.
Some of that is just human nature: obviously we don't raise our voices and scream about the things that are okay. (We certainly should practice gratitude more often, of course)
There's a unfortunate implication in your words, though, regarding "outrage."
Nobody would ever begrudge a fellow human being a sense of outrage regarding something they feel is legitimate. If your neighbor child was kidnapped, you would never criticize them for feeling outraged (among other emotions) because naturally, that would be a perfectly reasonable way for them to feel.
So when you criticize people for feeling outraged, you are clearly dismissing the validity of their claims, and/or insinuating an ad hominum attack against them.
Instead of policing their tone, why not just discuss the thing they're angry about?
Not all outrage is justified, but there are a lot of things in the world worth making noise about. Some are life and death.
Two observations.
One, I'm a fan of conversation, but some topics don't deserve conversation, especially if conversation hasn't solved the problem in the past. With the benefit of hindsight, we can look back through history and spot plenty of these. There were plenty of people who said, "hey! let's not get all uppity about slavery! let's really think hard about this!" and history does not look kindly upon them. There is no middle ground there and no compromise possible. Most issues are not so clear-cut, but some are.
Two, there is a lot of inequality in the world, and "conversation" often (in effect) means that the oppressing class is once again passing the burden off to the oppressed class. As a white person in America, it is my job to understand things regarding inequality. It is not black folks' job to explain it to me. Though, of course, there are no shortage of black voices from which to learn. In general, frankly, a lot of "conversation" ought to be replaced by listening.
I certainly don't have any opinions on you, personally!
But yes, an awful lot of bad things have been normalized within us.
There are really two ways we can react to that. We can view those realizations as attacks and attempts to "guilt" us. Or we can see those as opportunities to get better.
Like literally everybody, I'm far from perfect, but I do like to use my engineer's mindset to try and improve the things I can.
Ah, the ol' "bumper sticker activist" criticism.
Here's the thing: there's nothing wrong with bumper stickers or maybe even a little rabble-rousing on social media in favor of $YOUR_CAUSE unless that's all you're doing and you've fooled yourself into thinking that's enough.
Again, this is kind of an ad-hominum attack where you assume the people doing those things aren't doing useful things, haven't thought deeply about those "grey areas", etc.
Some of these missed the mark a bit, but broadly speaking I agree with most of these points.
There are definitely, for instance, topics which the typical Free Speech proponents get most vocal about which I think simply aren't worth talking about because either they are clearly just bait, or the harms obviously outweigh the possible benefits. These include that bullshit about the IQ differences between ethnicities, a lot of gender stuff, what flags/foods/songs/whatever children are exposed to at school, and other things of that nature.
Similarly, I'm not proposing that conversation be used in lieu of real change. Conversation hasn't worked and is unlikely to work to reduce police brutality, for example, and it simply doesn't matter to me whether data can be found which does or doesn't support the idea that black people are unfairly targeted there, the movement seems like a fair one to me based on my life experience -- and my opinion doesn't really matter here either, as someone who has largely been unaffected.
My complaint only holds in the extreme. Unfortunately, a lot of our lives are now lived in that band.
Mostly agreed on the ad hominem stuff.
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Really enjoyed reading this level headed discussion, thank you
Is this not victim blaming? If you attempt to ruin someone's life because they said "guacamole nigga penis" I don't think you can use "we live in a society" as justification. Seems like a flimsy excuse. Literal KKK members feel like they need to "go outside the system" to harm black people, does that make lynching okay?
Beyond that, characterizing cancel culture as "going outside the system" is silly. It's literally tattling, how much more sucking up to the system could one be? If "the system" (aka the overall collection of people in positions of power) was a-okay with sexual assault and racism cancel culture wouldn't exist because you wouldn't be able to complain to bosses, schools, etc. about people raping or being racist.
Absolutely not, of course.
My initial post said nothing to indicate that cancel culture was a good thing, or that it always represented a just cause.
Nor did it say that "going outside the system" always represented a just cause, etc.
> But when groups go unheard, feel a system is unjust, and feel unable to change the system they understandably seek to go outside the system.
They're being heard loud and clear. That's the problem. Their incessant whining and searching for the "problematic" behind every issue is crowding out reasonable discourse and discussion.
It's a form of mob rule and it's progressing from tiresome to downright hideous as more and more careers are destroyed by its vindictiveness.
> "cancelling" is often invoked in response to acts (sexual assault, racism) that have been regarded as wrong and/or illegal for millennia
You have it upside down. Cancelling is often the result of applying today's morals on yesterday's actions. People/books/movies/statues weren't "cancelled" before because nobody had a problem before. But now everything's retrospectively a target of the new moral crusaders.
No, you didn't hear the problems before.
Plenty of people found these things lousy for decades, and in some cases centuries.
But not enough listened. So the voices became louder, and more unruly.
It's like when you try to tell your neighbor nicely that his dog's been pooping on your yard. And he does nothing about it for years. Then one day he wonders why you've left an enormous pile of dog poop on his doorstep.
Gross? Rude? Highly non-ideal? Sure. But he didn't listen to reasonable discourse.
> Plenty of people found these things lousy for decades, and in some cases centuries.
So what? Many more found them worthy. A critique is not the measurement of whether statues should be torn down or books censored. Otherwise no art would be produced.
What has changed is that the mob has become emboldened into thinking that things they don't like deserve to be destroyed. It's juvenile intolerant behavior.
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lol. The idea that people in cancel culture aren't literally the institution right now.
This is the hilarious thing about this worldview. As you people gain more and more power you have to keep positioning yourself as the underdog.
You're not the first ideology to do this, and you won't be the last. EVERYBODY sees right through this even though you all pretend not to... but most importantly the kids see right through it. This is why Gen Z hates millennials so much.